DRM spec gets industry backing

By
Stacy Cowley, IDG News Service
| Jan 21, 2005

| IDG News Service

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A new DRM (digital rights management) spec is in the offing with the formation of a new body made up of top consumer electronics companies and Intertrust. The Marlin Joint Development Association includes Matsushita (Panasonic), Philips, Samsung and Sony.

Digital rights protections have long been a concern of software and entertainment companies, but the Marlin project is one of the first backed by the hardware makers, which would like to ensure that consumers can access protected content like video clips and music files on devices such as mobile phones. Marlin's goal is a standard toolkit that will allow device makers to build DRM directly into their products.

Intertrust CEO Talal Shamoon said he's optimistic about Marlin's chance for success because of the size and influence of the initiative's participants and their commitment to the project. "Each of the five members are bringing in things that they've been working on for a while," he said.

Marlin is closely related to the Coral project announced in October, which aims to cut through the thicket of competing DRM plans with an industry-wide interoperability framework. Coral's participants include the Marlin group, plus HP and Twentieth Century Fox. Marlin's specification will be compatible with Coral's protocols, Intertrust said.

Shamoon expects version one of the Marlin specification to be ready by mid-2005. From there, it will be up to device makers how quickly they implement the technology, but Shamoon said Marlin-equipped devices could be on the market as early as 2006.